


E.D.B

by pariahpirate



Series: the ascendant sign [2]
Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Child Abuse, Child Soldiers, For Want of a Nail, I encourage you guys to read it, M/M, Magitek Prompto, Self-Hatred, a continuation of Reprisal, alternative universe, intense poverty, it will make the pain hurt more, light body horror, references of - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-27
Updated: 2017-02-06
Packaged: 2018-09-20 05:03:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 8,616
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9476816
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pariahpirate/pseuds/pariahpirate
Summary: He can’t erase the scars, can’t undo the programming, can’t remove the monster in his blood. All he can do is try to be the opposite of everything he was supposed to be and ignore all the pain that comes from standing in Lucis’ sun.(A study into what it means to survive and what it means to thrive)





	1. Slum-dweller

**Author's Note:**

> Reading Reprisal is not necessary for this AU, but I can tell you it will give you some background info for some of the things I set up in this AU. Like I said in the tags, it will make the hurt sharper and the triumph sweeter.
> 
>  
> 
> Also title is pending I literally cannot thing of anything right now so just, have something that makes little to no sense to you right now.

Prompto’s home is the antithesis to everything Noctis has known and grown up with. It is an eye-opener unlike any other, one that has shaken the young prince to his core. Prompto’s hand is a warm weight in his own as the blonde boy leads him down streets that are too crowded and too thin and so vibrantly colored to mask the dereliction of the buildings all around them. This is the poorest part of Insomnia. The true slums, with hushed black market dealings and nests of criminals.

The building is a mess of architecture, a tower of interconnected shacks, dovetailed together to form some semblance of one building. Prompto points to one of the higher up windows.

“Right there, by the fire-escape. Marked with prayer flags.” He says, grinning. The grin falls for a second before returning in full, sheepish eyes and all. He explains, “The fire escape is the only way up to it right now. The main stairwell … had an accident.”

Something about the explanation tastes like a lie. Noctis is more willing to believe that there was never a main stairwell than to believe that one existed and had  _ an accident _ . But Prompto is so earnest and happy, and he is Noctis’ very first true friend. He refuses to ruin anything with his own spoiled upbringing and personal opinions.   
(How can anybody live in such squalor? How can Prompto be so proud of this place?)

From the lead up, Noctis half-expects the inside of the apartment to be worse than the outside. He feels like he knows Prompto fairly well. The other boy is chaos embodies usually. Chaos and sunshine, well-meaning and messy. His apartment is a reflection of him in all the possible ways, from the meticulously stacked garbage in the overflowing garbage can to the hundreds of polaroid photographs tacked to the crumbling drywall. It smells like charcoal smoke and something that makes his throat tickles. He coughs.  
“Aaaaand that would be the mold.” Prompto laughs in his awkward-embarrassed way. Noctis’ eyes widen. Isn’t that _bad_? Mold is terrible and bad for health in general why - why would you live in a place with mold? Can’t you clean it? Get rid of it?

Prompto laughs again, high and flighty, his hand rubbing the back of his head in the way he does when he desperately wants to avoid the question, “Well, it’s not like I  _ like _ having mold…”

Noctis chews at his lip and lets the issue go. After all, he has no basis to judge what is and isn’t normal. So he plops down on a well-worn couch and tries to ignore the lumpiness. He takes in the steady hum of the old refrigerator in the tiny kitchen-corner. He takes in the half-shattered full-length mirror by the window. He takes in the cramped little side-room that holds a half-made bed and a dresser and nothing else, really. He takes in the small collection of potted cacti on the worn wooden table. He takes in the long strands of colorful prayer flags, gold ink glimmering in the low afternoon light.

“The old man next door rigged our building to have a better signal last week.” Prompto begins, setting to a can of soda on the coffee table for Noctis before opening one of his own, “So I’ve been trying to test it out. You up some King’s Knight?”  
Noctis doesn’t exactly understand what Prompto means by _rigged_ and he doesn’t particularly want to think to deeply as to what that could mean. It’s been a rough week at school and at home and the responsibilities required of him are crushing. Too much. He needs to not think, needs to be with Prompto and just _be_ because that’s Prompto’s special power. Normality. Prompto is _normal_.

“You’re on.” Noctis smirks, a competitive gleam in his eye.

* * *

 

There are deep scratches on the shattered mirror and gashes in the drywall. They stand as evidence, forever, because he can never forget. No matter how much he tries to hide the gashes with hasty plaster fixes and fresh paint. No matter how often he tries to hide the scratches with taped photographs and silly-cute stickers.

His reflection can’t taunt him when it’s full of spiderweb cracks. He’s thin again, just as he had been when he had first carved out his home in Insomnia.He imagines his younger years as a chubby wallflower, back when his insides and outsides matched. When he was revolting inside and out. He sees the boy he left behind in his mind’s eye, the weight he shed pound by pound, like a creature straight from Kafka’s finest works. At least back then he was so physically incapable of anything - now, now it’s  _ different _ .

Now he’s more like what he was supposed to be  _ all along _ .

His heart heaves and his stomach revolts and the acrid taste of bile is on his tongue. He underwent this transformation willingly. He wanted to be beautiful and he cannot change his insides but he can change his outsides into something worthy. Something worthy of the Prince, if only in image. It makes him feel like a liar, and liars will burn with Ifrit for all eternity when they die.

(where do monsters go after they are slain?)

He did this for Noctis. He did this for Lunafreya. He changed everything he used to be ( _because you wanted to be better -_ ** _because you were ordered to by an authority_** ) for the second time in his life, and just like the first time it was so hard. It was so hard and he still wonders, to this day, if it was worth it ( _you used to be the antithesis of a proper Magitek soldier -_ **_who says now that you’re close again, you won’t revert?_** ). He hates his reflection, fat or skinny. He can’t erase the scars, can’t undo the programming, can’t remove the monster in his blood. All he can do is try to be the opposite of everything he was supposed to be and ignore all the pain that comes from standing in Lucis’ sun.

* * *

 

A knock at Prompto’s door scares the piss out of Noctis. All things considered, it sounded more like a fist banging on sheet metal and he had been intensely focused on the match.

“Lemme get it Noct.” Prompto tosses his controller on the couch and gets up. He flashes Noctis a grin and stretches lazily, his faded old band t-shirt riding up to expose some of his stomach. The stretch marks that cross the pale skin there are so faint, but Noctis is always drawn to them. He never could figure out why or how Prompto lost so much weight so quickly, only to have lithe muscles in its place. 

Noctis turns back to the match and tries to focus again, but he can’t. He loses a few cards to half-thought out decisions, terrible decisions, and by the time  _ DEFEAT _ flashes across the screen, Prompto’s returned with something that smells disgustingly healthy and overly spicy. He wrinkles his nose instinctively.

“You want some?” Prompto holds out a rather deep bowl of something that is probably chili but it’s cream-colored. He laughs at the somewhat pained expression Noctis makes when he sees the gratuitous amounts of beans in the bowl.

“Only asking! It’s cool. Dilan says I don’t eat nearly enough so he comes by three times a week with  _ extra _ .” Prompto blows a raspberry and waves the plastic spoon about like a baton, “He’s got like, eighty kids of his own to feed.” He shoves a spoonful into his mouth and scoffs with his mouth full of chili. It’s ridiculously adorable.

“Eighty kids.” Noctis raises his eyebrow with skepticism and amusement written across his face in bolded letters. Prompto drapes himself over his lumpy couch like some cheesy soap opera actress, one arm across his eyes and the other holding the bowl of chili. He looks ridiculous.

“Why can’t you let me be dramatic!” He whines. Noctis lets Prompto eat in relative silence as he lazes through the game menus and fiddles with his deck’s build. Prompto almost never ate during their lunch hour, and when he did it was hardly more than a snack for rabbits. He always worried about his friend’s poor eating habits. It was nice to see that he did eat normally, though at an unnerving infrequency.

Maybe … Ignis wouldn’t mind making some extra food every now and then?

“Sorry Prom, but I don’t make the rules.” He feigns seriousness and shrugs in that what-can-you-do manner that he swears Gladio has trademarked.

“You’re the  _ prince _ !” Prompto splutters and Noctis’ cool facade cracks and he erupts into very undignified laughter as Prompto’s protests continue to grow more and more incoherent and the mock-fighting begins. They end up sprawled and tangled on the floor. There’s a shoe digging into Noctis’ spine and Prompto’s going to have a bruise from where he banged his elbow into the coffee table, but neither of them care about that right now. The world is just them, cracking jokes and playing stupid childish games and being normal sixteen-year olds.

As their breathing evens and their hearts slow to a normal pace, Noctis poses the question. He hopes it comes out casually and not too pressuring.

“You wanna come by my place tomorrow? For dinner?” 

Prompto doesn’t answer for a while, and it feels like an eternity. Noctis feels his palms grow sweaty.

“You sure your, uh, retainers? - They won’t mind?” Prompto stammers a bit over his words and he has an odd look in his eye and that familiar flushed tint to his cheeks. Noctis grins, knowing he’s won.

“Nah. It’ll be fine.”

It’s a promise.

* * *

 

Friends are a foreign concept to him. They are foreign and bright and beautiful. Treasures he covets, no matter how many friends he’s gained or will gained. Always, always, ever since he first arrived to Insomnia ( _ the wall was daunting -  _ **_it should have kept him out, like it keeps all the other daemons out_ ** ) and ran with the orphaned hordes in the darkest parts of Insomnia’s slums. 

Still

Meeting the future advisor of the king …

He’s terrified

* * *

 

His first impression of Prompto Argentum is a salient, shining one. Ignis approves of the blonde boy immediately, and though he keeps his face as neutral as possible, there is a lingering smile that tugs and pulls at him. He’s happy for the prince. Happy that his melancholy is interrupted by sunlight. The duties he is slowly undertaking are numerous and burdensome. Prompto makes for a very useful anchor. A valuable reminder that Noctis is still only a child. That yes, he will be king, but right now it is okay to step back and catch his breath.

Prompto is also a commoner. He comes from a normal life, ignorant of the life that Noctis has been born into and the duties that are required of nobility and royalty alike, and instead is wise to the common man’s walk of life and their own struggles. To have the insight that Prompto provides will show the young prince more than any traditional tour of the lower rings ever will. The blonde will teach him compassion and wisdom in depth, because unlike many kings before him, Noctis will truly know.

He looks into the boy while the two are criticizing each other’s palate - Noctis’ pickiness and Prompto’s complete willingness to eat anything, to be specific. It feels a bit like prying as he looks through the transcripts, but he approves of what he finds. Prompto has attended the very same preparatory school as Noctis for some time, entirely on a scholarship for the sciences. His average grades are higher than Noctis’ own and his record is free from blemishes. There is only one concern ever voiced.

But it was voiced by nearly every teacher.

Concerns about the boy’s health. His eating habits were poor. He lost a concerning amount of weight and, as of recent, hasn’t been seen eating at all during the designated lunch periods. His registered address places him as a slum-dweller. He usually sports a cough of some degree of rattling. His clothes are threadbare, secondhand at best.

Ignis looks up from his less-than-honest research to regard this blonde boy with a more critical eye. He’s saddened by what he learns. Prompto had an almost sickly pallor to his skin, darkened by only his freckles and the bags beneath his eyes. His nails were ragged and ridged. He was bony to an unnerving degree. He eats food just like any starving child, protective and with gusto. His bowl is empty of curry within minutes, and though he’s starry eyed at the quality of Ignis’ cooking ( _ the best _ , he insists,  _ the very top most incredible best food I have ever shoved in my mouth _ ) he all but inhales it. Ignis regrettably cuts him off after seconds. He knows enough of about starvation and malnutrition to know that eating too much at once does more harm than good for the maladapted stomach.

This is Ignis’ second impression of Prompto Argentum, and it aches in a way that he hadn’t anticipated. They boy who’s brought some of the old Noctis back is as impoverished and they come. A war refugee, maybe, but an orphan most certainly. Prompto lives in decrepit buildings that should have been torn down years ago and replaced. Prompto lives gil to gil, alone and fighting to survive in what must be a haven of criminal activity, with drug dealers, prostitutes, and squatters.

There are thousands of things this boy can teach Noctis. He lives the barest of lives, living on the barest of means like so many, too many, Insomnians. Prompto can teach Noctis so many things.

But to do so, Prompto should be alive.

The prince has had enough grief in his life.

* * *

 

He has a nightmare that night, long after the sensation of a fully-functional heater had abandoned him, long after the warmth of Noctis’ laughter and Ignis’ wit has left his bones.

It’s an old nightmare, reoccuring any time he gets too comfortable with life and the like. It’s always the same too - painted and moving so vividly.

Like always the girl with the silver hair is there, standing strangely lax, like everything that she is and was had drained out of her. Drained out of her like all the color - her freckles are grey dots in a sparse smattering across the bridge of her nose, her hair is three shades of white-and-silver, her face is a fair as the moon and the goggles that hide her eyes are dark as night. Her expression cannot be read properly with her eyes hidden, but her mouth is a thin line.

Her face is streaked with something as dark as ink, and just as thick. He is also covered in the black. His hands. His uniform. Her face and teeth. Gods he feels sick. Everything his is is rebelling. There’s an itch under his skin, a  _ something _ curling in his veins and clawing its way up his throat.

The girl’s mouth opens. She says something, something he does not hear, cannot understand. Everything becomes too much and he runs. He runs and runs and runs until he comes to. Until he wakes up. 

He wakes up in a cold sweat, most definitely not on the bed in which he had fallen asleep in, but in a tangle of blankets and sheets, on the floor. His heart races in his chest and the room is unnaturally cold.  _ Just a dream, just a dream _ , he tells himself. Over and over again, mentally and aloud, until the message sinks in and becomes real.

It’s just a dream, he says. A dream that torments him differently each time it crops up. Always with the colorless girl. Always with the black. Always with a forest clearing littered with … with… with … 

He pretends it’s a dream.

He can’t accept it for what it is, ever.

  
  
  
  
(It’s a memory)


	2. wrist

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Project. Subject Identification. Year. Designation. Month. Day.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> another chapter :U !!! So long!!! So quickly !!!  
> its because I don't sleep

Noctis’ commoner friend is by far the most skittish creature Gladio has ever had the pleasure to shake hands with. And what a handshake that was too. The kid had locked up like he was up against a behemoth with his pants around his ankles, all wide-eyed and stiff, and that cute smattering of freckles across his cheeks rearranged themselves to spell out a personal message from him to Gladio -  _ Please don’t squish me _ . 

The kid had a strong grip though, which was honestly surprising. A lanky build, definately too skinny to be healthy, but that look Ignis just flashed him was more than enough warning to keep quiet on the subject. Probably touchy. So Gladio gives Ignis a nod to indicate  _ message received _ and continues to get acquainted with what he’s got to work with here.

If the kid gained muscle, it would almost certainly be lean. He’ll never have broad shoulders, never be able to wield a greatsword to its full potential. Spidery hands and thin fingers threaded with hidden steel, but his legs are too long and torso to thin and his arms are two steps away from half-cooked noodles. Knife-wielder maybe. Hell, maybe a katana? This Prompto looks like he has the potential to be fast, if Gladio can whip him into proper shape. Fast is good.

“Gladiolus Amicitia.” He sports that charming grin, the one that really should set anybody at ease but Prompto is still too intimidated by his size to reply with words. Insead he squeaks and nods furiously as a colorful flush stretches from ear to ear.

Ignis had been the first to approach him, and he had posed it as formal request, backed up with about five pages of logic, reasoning, and persuasion, like a formal essay complete with citations. He had a lot of valid points that were convincing enough, even if Gladio hadn’t really cared to remember them, but Gladio had only said then that he’d  _ consider it _ . But then Noctis came to him. Noctis came to him, asking the same question only it wasn’t a request. 

It felt more like a plea. 

And what Noctis told him, what Gladio managed to pry out of the mostly-sullen boy, was worry and concern and confusion for his very first friend-of-choice. Noctis had what was really, honestly, the most convincing argument because it was nothing but raw concern for Prompto Argentum. Prompto Argentum who lived in the Somnus-Pavor neighborhood in the deepest bowels of Insomnia, where the darkest side of the city grew like weeds in the sidewalk cracks.

He agreed, and now here he is, standing before Prompto Argentum, who is a very thin, undernourished, impoverished slip of a boy with more determination in his odd blue eyes than fear. And that is something that Gladio can respect.

His grin might have been a tad too vicious, because Prompto flinches.

Tch.

Wuss.

“Alright Prompto,” Gladio turns away and walks over to the weapons rack. He picks up a standard little short sword and tosses it to the blonde. He fumbles it, but doesn’t drop it completely. His grip on the thing is too tight and too afraid, but he’s got the right idea with his stance. It looks pretty solid, if a bit odd. “Get ready.”

“R-ready?!” Prompto’s voice is pretty much what he’d expected. High and thin, everything like a sunny summer breeze.

Gladio takes his favorite practice sword, a well-loved wooden replica of his father’s greatsword. He doesn’t give the blonde a response, instead opting to launch himself and go for a light overhead strike.

He’s a skittish thing, this Prompto kid. Skittish and  _ fast _ and  _ graceful _ . He dodges perfectly to the left with a smooth last-second side-step. His body is held low. He sits in the perfect position for a counter. He has the advantage. He has the opening. He has the grace and the speed to put Gladio on his ass, even though he lacks the muscle. Helpless? No, no this boy definitely knew a thing or two about fighting. Ignis must have been blind to not see it before -

Prompto doesn’t go for the strike. He instead stumbles back, shock in his eyes and limbs, like he can’t believe what he just pulled off. Gladio narrows his eyes. No. It’s not shock. It’s fear. He hums, smirking. Maybe this kid just has the instincts. Maybe he was hasty in assuming the kid knows how to fight. That shot he had was ripe and ready and he missed it. It was an easy shot for somebody as fast as him.

Either way.

This kid has  _ promise _ .

And Gladio is gonna beat it out of him.

* * *

 

Prompt feels it the second Gladiolus lunges for him. The instincts take his limbs and act before his screaming mind can catch up. He dodges left too quickly, faster than any untrained commoner ( _ but you aren’t an untrained commoner, are you? _ **_No, you’re a monster_ ** ) has the right to. His timing is perfect, his execution is flawless. It has been over a decade, but it seems that not even time can erase Niflheim-made muscle memory as Prompto sinks into one of Niflheim’s hand-to-hand combat stances. His eyes find the opening and the  _ something _ in him screams for him to take it.

He has the ability to hurt. He doesn’t even need the practice sword.

The images flash through his mind. The colorless girl, before him and limp, like a puppet suspended on strings of fear. His hands, his front, dripping black. The forest clearing, soiled forever? No, no it will all vanish away in a matter of seconds because this is a nightmare, it’s not real, it’s  _ not real he is awake it is not real _

So he stumbles back, wide-eyed and terrified. He can’t do this. He can’t fight.

 

He can’t fight.

( _ but it’s what you are made for -  _ **_it’s the only thing you’re good for and you can’t even do that right_ ** )

 

(Project. Subject Identification. Year. Designation. Month. Day.)

He can’t ( _ won’t -  _ **_refuses_ ** ) fight.

 

So he dodges. He dodges and purposefully lags behind in strikes and counters. He makes his swordplay sloppy because he cannot, for the life of him, step out of his body long enough to ruin his footwork. Muscle memory. Training. It’s too strong. He can’t control everything. He’s not that strong.

But he absolutely has to keep that  _ something _ in him contained. So he’ll be as horrible at sword fighting as he needs to be because he absolutely must not lose control. He can never show - never show the terrible, horrible, no-good monster that dwells just beneath his peachy human skin. Not to Noctis. Not to Ignis. Not to Gladiolus. Not to anyone.

He clings pathetically to a life that is almost entirely founded on lies. It will collapse on him one day. There are too many lies, all of them fragile. All of them rely on how well Prompto can keep the monster inside him ( **_his true nature_ ** ) restrained, and gods know he’s a failure. A defect. There is something fundamentally wrong with him, and that is the core reason he stands, breathing heavy, before the next Lucian King’s Shield. The core reason he is alive in Lucis.

And not in ( _ your homeland -  _ **_a suit of metal armor_ ** ) Niflheim.

Gladiolus disarms him eventually. Prompto let him. He hopes it looked convincing enough. He hopes it looks like he tried to fight. He hopes his little audience buys the lies he forged. 

* * *

 

He disarms Prompto after they hit the ten minute mark in their sparring match. The little shit was flighty as hell, nearly impossible to get a proper hit on, but Gladio left himself open over a dozen times. He purposefully let down his guard countless times, at first just to bait the kid, but then he started feeling bad. Prompto hardly tried to hit him. The kid tried to counter, tried to his him a few times (hardly substantial. Noctis put up a better fight when he was  _ eleven _ ) but something held him back.

Feh.

He says ‘something’ when it’s pretty clear what that ‘something’ is.

Gladio’s spent his whole life around soldiers and war heroes. He knows the signs of PTSD as plain as day. This kid has seen some  _ nasty shit _ and it’s left  _ teeth _ .

As the practice sword clatters to the ground, Prompto clutches his right wrist. Probably hurt it when he struck the sword from the blond’s hand. Gladio mentally swears for hurting the kid already. He was hoping to at least make it to the third session before any accidental injuries.

“You okay?” He drops his sword and takes a few slow steps towards the boy, “I didn’t hit ya too hard, did I?”

Big indigo eyes, too wide and too bright, blink up at him. Surprise echoes in their depths. 

“N-nah. I’m… I’ll be fine!” Prompto stumbles over his words and he forces a pretty awkward grin on his face. It only takes a few second before the awkwardness melts away into genuine sunshine. This kid …. He was certainly something else.

* * *

 

He’s not hurt.

His wrist is just … sensitive.

Sensitive in the sense that it is marked. It is the only physical trait that he cannot hide completely. The only thing that he cannot pass off as a trick of the light or sleep-deprived hallucinations. The ink is stark against fair flesh. It is raised and, in a truly twisted sense, elegant and beautiful.

On his wrist is his first name. His first identity.

 

Project. Subject Identification. Year. Designation. Month. Day.

 

It’s all written there, everything he is to ( _ his homeland, where he was created  _ \-  **_where he belonged_ ** ) Niflheim.

* * *

 

Gladio likes Prompto too, just like Ignis does, even though both of them try to act aloof about the whole matter. Noctis suspects it is because they know how poor Prompto is (because they undoubtedly found out. It’s their damn jobs to know everything about everyone that so much as sneezes in their prince’s vicinity.) and that such a friendship is really unbecoming of royalty. It’s like, mingling with  _ bad _ commoners, and that probably doesn’t sit too well with his princely image. After all, nobody in court likes reminding that poor people who can barely afford working plumbing nevermind clothes that aren’t second-hand even exist.

When Noctis is king, he will fix it. He’ll figure out how to fix the issue. Tax cuts and tax breaks, outreach programs and extra funding for hospitals and rehabilitation centers. Better schools and daycares. Better orphanages and more soup kitchens. Legitimate housing, built by legitimate contractors. 

There are so many problems and so many half-solutions, but Noctis is learning. Noctis will spend hours with his nose buried in civil policy books, with their too-small print and overly verbose explanations and their deathly dry long-winded passages, if it means he can help Prompto and the rest of Insomnia.

This is only a fraction of why Noctis suspects Ignis likes Prompto. Gladio likes Prompto for obvious, easy reasons. Prompto is easy to love. He’s cheerful and chatty and genuine and to Gladio he’s a challenge to train in ways that Noctis isn’t and can’t be, which makes it all interesting and new. With Ignish though, it’s different. To him, the whole motivating Noctis to really learn about kingly duties is probably the biggest perk to ever occur ever, but Prompto is a lot more to Noctis than just motivation to be a good king.

Prompto just all-around makes Noctis want to be better. He makes Noctis feel guilty when he shoots down offers to dick around at the arcade in order to study. In order to babysit Dilan’s nine kids ( _ not eighty, Prom, you’re such a drama queen _ ). In order to work an extra shift at that new part-time job. Prompto is his age, a few months shy of seventeen now, and he’s doing so much, and Noctis half the time can’t even be bothered to clean his dump of an apartment.

So he starts small.

Something is always playing on his television now. It’s youtube videos that teach some practical skills, like how to make easy and cheap meals or how to pick a lock or how to sew. It’s one of the several news stations because though he hates everything that comes with being a prince, he has power and he has seen the powerless and he’s never felt a sense of duty so keenly before. It’s music to help make the mind-numbing task of cleaning up less terrible.

It’s small steps. 

But they’re steps.

* * *

 

Prompto likes Gladio. He likes Ignis too. They’re bright and beautiful and he thinks of them as friends, even though he doesn’t know them too well yet.

This is precisely why he despises training with them. He likes them. He values their friendship and the time they spend together and Prompto is such a selfish creature. He is a terrible, selfish creature that wants far too many things all at once. He doesn’t want to lose them. Doesn’t want to hurt them, but they push him far too close to the monster’s cage in their pushing him to be a better fighter. He doesn’t want to fight, ever, but he doesn’t have much of a choice to say no here. So he does his best to be a mess. To be as unteachable and hopeless. 

And when training is over, he runs. ( **_like a coward_ ** _ ) _

He always leaves the palace’s training halls, shaking with adrenaline and the  _ something _ . It wracks his body like small earthquakes, making his fingers itch and twitch and yearn. There’s a reason why he’s seized by the muses ( _ it’s a constant lie -  _ **_nobody buys it anymore_ ** ) after training. There’s a reason he always takes out his camera and travels around Insomnia until he’s about to drop from sheer exhaustion. There is a  _ reason _ why Prompto took up photography and the reason lies with the monster sleeping in his bones. The monster that makes his fingers twitch when he spies a person with delicate features like pretty skin and a steady pulse, an urge to point metal towards them. To pull a trigger and reveal their souls for him, just him.

Photography is the harmless form of a gun. It quells the urges the monster ignites in his fingers. 

In his little apartment, he’s building a mural of polaroid photos of the Insomnia skyline, in a gradient of time - from dawn to dusk to dawn again. It’s just a little project he’s been working on for a few weeks now, whenever he had the time.

Whenever he had the urges.

He runs out of film after a dozen or so photographs. His hand finds his marked wrist. Gladio had given him a wrist brace for his ‘injury’. Wearing it instead of the old green-and-white sweatband had certain benefits. It was impossible for it to slip. Accidental reveals were impossible. However, it was a wrist brace. It inhibited movement, locked joints in place, and that just stuck a nerve in Prompto. Sent shivers down his spine and made his skin crawl.

Being locked in place reminded him of the labs.

The labs stir up old memories, things that he’s tried so hard to bury. But they’ll never be gone and he’ll never be free. The labs were cold metal and brought back the black running in his veins. He loses himself, loses  _ Prompto Argentum _ and instead he’s - he’s an  _ it _ and  _ it  _ is -

is

is

  
  


Project. Subject Identification. Year. Designation. Month. Day.

* * *

 

“Hey Iggy?” Prompto, as per the usual, initiates conversation with a tilt of his head and a certain sparkle to his eyes. Curiosity. Innocence. Purity. It’s a bird-like habit of his that Ignis has only started to find endearing.

(Noctis, it seems, has been charmed from the very begining.)

“Yes Prompto?” He looks up from the  Leiden Potatos he’s peeling, and as a result, nearly nicks his thumb with the knife. He frowns a bit at that, irritated at his carelessness. 

“Where are you from?” Prompto asks, and the temperature of Noctis’ apartment is all too warm, all too quickly. 

Noctis is asleep, sprawled out rather uncomfortably on the couch. By the exceptionally ungraceful line of drool that’s pooling on the upholstery under him, it’s a deep sleep that only a push off the couch can break. Noctis is not here to save him with a distraction.

Ah, he knew this question was coming.

“I was born here, if that is what you’re asking.” This is the unsatisfying answer. It is only meant to buy time, really, until Ignis can ground himself to answer the question properly. He needs to be mentally prepared for this.

“I guess… I kinda, um, meant -” Prompto is too timid. He stumbles and stammers and always seems so very afraid under that cover of sunshine smiles. Gladio has spoken at lengths as to what this condition implies. Ignis had immediately done some research and reached a similar conclusion, though he is no professional. 

“My accent.” Ignis provides, clipped and careful. Prompto always dances around with words, like he treads on thin ice when he’s standing on solid earth. But this time is different, and he  _ is _ standing on thin ice, and it’s not his fault at all. It’s nobody’s but his own, for making it such a touchy subject.

“Bingo! Ahah. Heh. Um, you - you totally don’t have to answer if you don’t want to. I know some things are too personal and-”

“My mother used to be a member of Tenebrae’s nobility,” Ignis’ voice is soft, tinged with grey as memories of his mother’s fair face and anger lines stir in him, “She was betrothed to a Lucian count since she was young.  But with the burning of the capital…” 

He doesn’t intend for his voice to crack. He doesn’t intend for any emotion to slip through at all, but it does anyway. He had lost nearly everyone in his family that day.

“When the capital burned, Niflheim stipped all of Tenebrae’s nobility of… essentially all they had.” His mouth is dry. His throat burns. These are things he doesn’t like to touch, locked up in a tiny box in the back of his mind, but that box is opened now. All the small, nostalgia dipped memories and painful thoughts swell forth like the rising tide.

“I lost the majority of my family, really and truly.” He breaths in. Out. One-two-three, one-two-three, “Though I had been living in Insomnia for quite some time, undergoing necessary training - it -”

“You don’t have to.” Prompto sees him struggle. He’s moved from the couch, moved to the bar and takes one of the seats. He’s closer now, and Ignis can see the regret on the boy’s face, “I get the picture. I’m sorry I-

“It is… it is a difficult part.” Ignis finds himself confessing. He would brush away the other boy’s guilt if he could, but he isn’t sure how. So he tries to divert. “It’s fine. You meant no harm.”

It isn’t fine, but it needs to be. One day it will be.

“If you say so, dude.” Prompto smiles in the way he does when he wants to help, but there is no helping Ignis with this problem, and he easily switches the conversation to meaningless things. He drags Ignis into the mundane, away from that sour box of memories. He’s grateful, he is

but

The question is on the tip of his tongue. To return the curiosity. Ignis has his mother’s accent and her thirst for knowledge, but he has his father’s tact. Everything he’s seen from Prompto thus far points that he found his way into Insomnia early, but not early enough to fully erase the heaviness in his vowels, the quickness of his consonants. But that is a life Prompto left. A life he very clearly never wishes to return to, even in memories.

To force the blonde back to his own sour memories would be needlessly cruel. All evidence points to Prompto escaping the hell he was born into alone, under his own power. Ignis’ tragedy was a brutal, organized affair that took place while he was leagues away. He is detached from his trauma in a way that makes finding peace difficult.

Prompto, he feels, is too attached, and because of this, cannot find peace either. Maybe one day Ignis will ask. One day when Prompto is able to recognize that he is truly safe, that his past will not come back and tear him away from this happiness he’s found, that he is among friends and loved ones. One day when Prompto has healed. Then Ignis will ask.

 

_ Until then _ , Ignis hums, and returns to his cooking, letting Prompto’s mindless chatter fill the room and his head until there are no bitter memories left.

* * *

 

He’s feeling brave tonight.

His wrist is left bare while he tries his hand at the recipe Ignis gave him earlier. A cheap and easy curry dish, because Ignis is well acquainted now with Prompto’s love for spicy food. As the rice cooks, he takes a seat at his modest little table and stares at his fractured reflection in the broken mirror.

His fingers mindlessly trace over the hard black lines. Over the two framing diamonds. Over the letters and numbers that mark him for what he is. What he was designed to be.

Project. Subject Identification. Year. Designation. Month. Day.

His very first identity.

His very first name.

 

Later that night he stares long and hard at his wrist as he lays in bed. He’s not sleepy. He’s tormented by the mantra that an honest, simple question has become.

 

_ It looks beautiful, doesn’t it? _

 

* * *

He has all the paperwork in order. He has all the proper licenses. Noctis understands the council’s general position on guns - but Prompto’s Crownsguard now and that is his chosen weapon and Noctis allows it. The council ultimately has no say in the matter now. Prompto’s been put through the wringer, through each and every test. He’s danced through all their legal hoops a dozen times over, and proved how worthy his mettle is.

The council can stuff it.

Prompto is Crownsguard and his gun is Noctis’ now.

 

And it is a really beautiful gun. Silver and intricately engraved. Prom said he likes the weight of it in his hands, likes the engravings of the barrel and the handle-part. (That’s what it was called right? Did it have a special name? He’s not sure, he’s really only just now learning how to fire the tiny metal thing)

Noctis likes to trace over the silver too. Likes the way it feels under the pads of his fingers. One day he’ll have this weapon memorized completely, just as he’s memorized the shape, feel, and traits of the rest of his arsenal.

His fingers trace over the serial-code carved small and dainty around the trigger. Each letter and number, he’ll memorize it too, because this is special to Prompto.

* * *

 

Prompto is Crownsguard now, the opposite of what he was made to be, and that’s a triumph. He feels like he’s taken down the Empire that made him. This euphoria in him is too much. He is more now, more than project-subject identification-year-designation-month-and-day. He’s  _ Prompto Argentum _ of the Crownsguard for the future King Noctis Lucis Caelum.

He mouths his first name. He whispers it into the night, elated, because he is so much more than that now.

* * *

 

 

( _EDB-00018-736-S010-25_ ) 


	3. snake. spider.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The colorless girl is EXX-01117-726-D310-22, but she hasn't been EXX-01117-726-D310-22 for some time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> short chapter but hey, its something right?

She hears voices.   
Her tongue tastes a familiar scent.   
  
  
”... My …. baby …”

 

Energy thrums in her veins as she is seized by impulse. Like a fiend she slithers through the maze of caverns and tunnels, both natural and daemon-made. She follows the scent that warms her dreams because she must. After so long, oh she thought he was gone forever. Her baby, her baby, he is  _ here. _ He is  _ here _ he has come  _ home _ he has come back to her, oh  _ her baby, her beautiful baby -  _

The disgusting stench of humans hits her like a cave wall, rough, brutal, and terrible. Fear shoots through her, from the tip of her nose to the tip of her tail. Her baby’s scent is mixed so heavily with these humans, so tangled and muted and obscured.

They have taken him, these humans.  
Just like they had taken him away before.

They are hurting him! No - no her baby

They took him from his mother they hurt him they hurt her and they will  _ pay _

She watches them, calls out for her baby with a warbling voice. She calls out for her baby - he will know her, just as she knows him. He will hear her call, smell her scent, and remember the warmth of her coils. Her baby will look up at her with glowing red-and-.black eyes and smile at her with chubby cheeks flushed deep grey and baby fangs once more and then the aching pain will cease. Then she will be warm again.

She reaches out, catches the smallest of their group within her coils and for a moment she’s so elated. It’s her son,  _ it’s her son. _

  
  


No

 

No it is not her son.

  
  


It cannot be her son. No, this is a human - it is a human with ugly pink flesh and ugly white-and-blue eyes. It smells like her son, it does, she would know that scent, that fluttering pulse anywhere. This human is tall, nearly grown. It is so far from the warmth of her tiny baby, the warmth she misses so terribly.  

_ Where is her baby _

_ Where is her son _

_ Where is he _

_ Where did he go _

 

In her shock, the human escapes her coils. She lets it go, lets it run.

 

She collects herself, anguished and hissing. Where is her baby? Where did he go? She remembers so little, everything blurs together in the cold and lonely, but she remembers watching over the smallest egg, bands of deep red speckles across an ebony shell. She remembers watching him hatch, remembers him falling bonelessly and wriggly from the black fluid. She remembers crying and laughter in tandem.

They took him from her. They took her baby.

The Bright White place and it’s humans.

(Laboratory)

They took her baby.

 

_ Where is my baby _

 

* * *

 

Noctis knows something’s up with Prompto. Something bad and horrible, and he’s reminded once more about the hushed conversations he’s overheard between Ignis and Gladio about  _ Prompto’s condition _ , in worry-tinged voices. Noctis has never heard much more beyond  _ skittish _ and  _ rightly so _ and  _ seen some heavy shit _ and  _ it’s left scars _ , but he knows Prompto better than either of them. He’s flighty sure, but he’s stronger than they give him credit for. No amount of  _ heavy shit _ or  _ scars _ can keep him down for long. 

But right now? 

Prompto’s definitely down.

There’s a small hole through the Naga’s forehead, a wound that remains far too stark, too visible, for far too long as the daemon dissolves into dark nothingness. The hole is a bullet wound - final, clean, and callously simple. The barrel of Prompto’s pretty silver gun is still smoking. It’s held tightly in his hands.

* * *

 

Prompto has nightmares for what feels like months after the Naga incident, but in reality is more like a week. It feels longer, probably because of the lack of sleep he’s getting. His dreams are haunted by the Naga herself, but also of the colorless girl. There is more to these dreams now and they’re all too terrible. There are bodies now in these dreams, bodies ripped asunder. Everything is stained or streaked or painted in the black and the colorless girl stands before you like she always has in these dreams. 

( _ she was afraid of you _ )

Her mouth moves, forming words that he can’t hear. She reaches up to wipe away some of the ink splatter on her cheeks, but it only smears. Prompto can’t move. Can’t breathe. The black stains his hands, his front, his  _ teeth _ \- It’s blood. He can’t lie to himself anymore. He did this. This nightmare is full of death and dying and he caused it. He caused all of it.

( _ there is so much blood _ )

He wakes up from these nightmares feeling empty and inhuman. When they’re camping, he sits on the Haven’s edge and watches the night’s creatures roam. When they’re in motels or campers, he finds his way up to the roofs to do the same - watching the night.

It’s how he knows that he’s a monster, how at ease he is when the sun goes down. How calm and welcomed the night feels on his skin. It soothes the burning of the sun. It eases the physical pain - but it only stirs up the nasty, biting thoughts. The self-deprecation, the agony of his lies and sins, it all comes forward at night. He’s truly a monster of the night, one that only feigns ease during the day.

He doesn’t belong. ( _ you really should stop pretending - _ **_you’re never going to belong_ ** )

* * *

 

Prompto’s been hanging back in the last dozen or so fights. He’s not jumping in recklessly with the modified Niff machines that both he and Cid tinker with like obsessed technophiles. Hell, there’s even been a few fights that have passed by without the kid even firing a shot. 

Gladio’s worried that  _ it _ is catching up to him. The signs point to it. Nightmare-imposed insomnia’s got Prompto’s number. Thank the Six for Noctis’ ability to sleep through the apocalypse, because that is sometimes what it honestly felt like. Prompto usually wakes up before it gets too bad, but on the off occasion that he doesn’t … 

It’s like the boy’s  _ possessed _ . He lashes out, kicking and hissing - eyes open but vacant. Unseeing. Locked in a vivid nightmare of some horrible, terrible thing. Ignis still has the bruises from the last time he and Gladio had to wrestle Prompto down. Gladio has, more than once, lied about the sudden over-night appearances of bandages because fuck - is that kid’s mouth full of  _ needles _ or something? He bites like a damn  _ daemon _ holy  _ shit. _

_ Just what has this kid been through? _

 

“What do we do Iggy?” He asks, and there’s a lit to his voice he didn’t expect. Thin. Strained. Worried and fraying.

Ignis doesn’t respond. He only looks down at Prompto’s still form. The kid is having nightmares, but it’s one of the rare quiet nights, when all that happens is the soft crying that tears them up inside. Gladio sees him struggle to swallow. He watches as Ignis’ thumbs away the worst of Prompto’s tears. He watches as the tears keep coming and there’s nothing they can do, is there?

“I don’t know.” Ignis murmurs, just as frayed, just as lost, “I don’t know.”

* * *

 

The colorless girl speaks to him. He hears her this time, her voice sounding older than it has any right to be, mirroring words that he’d heard only hours ago.

_ “Run, Pretty Boy.” _

Prompto wakes with a start, breathing as if he just has run from Niflheim to Lucis, all over again.

 

He remembers her. Remembers that she never really had color, and remembers her eyes beneath the dark standard issue goggles are green-green-green. 

 

10-22. 10-22 from the Double X series.

  
  
  


He wonders what her name is now, and why she would choose to remain with the people that made her a monster.

* * *

 

Ignis can’t handle Prompto’s thrashing, nightmare-consumed self alone. It took both him and Gladio to pin the blonde down before, and it took everything they had. Ignis alone is simply not strong enough. 

He worries.

Endlessly.

* * *

 

Noctis is fishing, has been fishing since they reached Steyliff Grove and were told the place they need to go only opens at night. Ignis is keeping him company, making witty remarks every now and then. Trying to mask his own unease at being one man down and also so very close to Chancellor Izunia ( _ he’s terrifying -  _ **_he knows_ ** ). Prompto had sat at the dock, fingertips gliding across the water’s surface, but he’s fidgety. He can’t sit still for too long. He needs to move, so he does.

He doesn’t stray too far - within sight, but out of earshot.

 

That’s when Commodore Aranea Highwind catches him. Corners him. He feels like prey, trapped by a dragon, and something in him  _ floods _ . He knows her, remembers her (10-22) but she - she does she know? He clutches his wrist and that doesn’t go unnoticed by her cool gaze. In fact, the unconscious reaction just telegraphs his fear. She smirks.

“You’re a long way from home.” She says, and he swears he’s never been colder in his life. Not even the monochrome laboratories were this cold. Prompto’s mouth is dry and his throat hurts and everything in him feels like dead weight falling. She most certainly knows what he is, just as she knows what she it.

( _ That place wasn’t home -  _ **_could say them same about you, spider_ ** )

“Sure am!” He says, and he probably looks like a complete fool with that idiotic nervous grin of his. The one that bares too many teeth to be comfortable. The one that is a remnant of his early days learning to be human.

Aranea ( _ EXX-01117-726-D3 _ **_10-22_ ** ) Highwind laughs and it’s an intimidating sound, “Cute.” 

Prompto doesn’t know what to do with that, so he just keeps on smiling - and Aranea continues.

“So you’re an DB?” She keeps her voice low and her smile predatory, looking him over with sharp eyes that see all the way through him, “I heard you  _ hatched _ .”

Something about her tone makes Prompto bristle. Defensively he strikes back.

“And you look like a double X.” He hisses, “Where’d they get you? The dumpster?”

 

Contrition is immediate, like falling face first onto pavement.

 

“I-I’m sorry.” He curls back into himself. Shoulders fall, head droops. He is all guilt and submission ( **_bare your belly for the stronger daemon_ ** ). He doesn’t know what came over him ( _ you’re lying - _ **_you know exactly what came over you_ ** )

She laughs, a huge snorting sound escaping her exceptionally pretty features. It’s so undignified, contrasting so sharply with her vicious demeanor. Her smile is never not sharp, but the one she’s wearing now, in the light of the late afternoon sun, is softer. It’s as friendly as one of his first smiles.

“10-22.” She murmurs, unconscious fingers finding the spot where she is branded.

“I know.” He says, fingering the stack of bracelets that hide his own.

She squints. Frowns. He tries not to flinch under her critical gaze. He doesn’t know what he wants. Will she recognize him? Does he even want her to?

  
  


“...10-25…” She breaths, green-green-green eyes wide and shocked. What comes next is a shock to him.

 

She hugs him. It’s a full embrace, and it’s the closest he’s ever felt to home because Aranea is 10-22. Aranea is  _ exactly _ like  _ him _ and she’s hugging him and she’s a bit bigger than he is, so for a brief second he can relax into what he is positive is a big sister’s embrace.

“It’s great to see you’re okay.” She whispers into his hair.

“I scared you.” Prompto chokes. He feels tears spring to his eyes.

“Not a chance.” She snorts again, but this is less humor, more bitterness, “You were such a shrimp.”

Prompto can’t control it anymore and the dam breaks. It all flows forth, all the pain and loneliness and fear of the viciousness that curls under his skin. Crying into her armor isn’t comfortable, but Aranea holds him, pets his hair, and hums a song that he doesn’t know but feels, deep in his rancid soul.

* * *

 

_ “It’s okay little brother. You’re going to be okay.” _


End file.
